tiresome but nonetheless always sure of itself

9/11/2011

A few things to consider when mulling yesterday’s anniversary of one of the single worst crimes ever committed, and the heroic actions of thousands who responded to its perpetrators’ abject nihilism and hate, with courage, hope and self-sacrifice.

Composer Steve Reich has finished a composition that includes audio snippets from air-traffic controllers, fire department radio transmissions and interviews with witnesses to the attacks. It is a jarring and piercing meditation on terror and how technology brought us that horror in real time. You can listen to the piece as performed by the Kronos Quartet at NPR.

Here is BuzzFeed’s compilation of some of the most heinous mischaracterizations of President Obama and his own faith and his presence at the WTC ceremony yesterday. The hatred and ignorance demonstarted by so-called god-fearing Christians illustrates the religious backlash that the terrorists inflicted on secular America, in addition to the thousands of murders and untold financial cost of the clean-up and subsequent wars.

Here is a list of lies told by former President George W. Bush and former Vice-President and possible war crimes defendant Dick Cheney connecting 9/11 to Iraq and using that as a justification for an unprovoked invasion of that country.

And a famously controversial quote from the aftermath that has served as the most evocative and clearest argument against unquestioned religious faith in the 21st century:

The men who committed the atrocities of September 11 were certainly not “cowards,” as they were repeatedly described in the Western media, nor were they lunatics in any ordinary sense. They were men of faith –perfect faith, as it turns out – and this, it must finally be acknowledged, is a terrible thing to be.